Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/375

Rh by the Saxon gleemen, we have the constituents of the drama as clearly as in the South and in India. In the sword-dance performed by young warriors in honour of the chief Teutonic god, as described by Tacitus, we have a parallel to the Dorian choral dances representing military movements, in honour of Apollo, the god of war and music. To the Rhapsodists, in whose union with the Dorian choruses, the Bacchic dances, and the Dionysian rites we find the origin of Greek drama, we may oppose the Northern scalds. And may we not conclude that had it not been for the introduction of Christianity we should have had in the North a drama corresponding to that of Greece, a direct outcome of the mythology of the Eddas and the rites of the worship of Odin? The constituents existed: the combination was wanting. Now it is the survivals of those elements in the folk-lore and traditionary customs of our country that I venture to call English folk-drama. These various links of tradition, when completed and placed in order, will carry us up to that embryonic state of natural dramatic development which preceded the introduction of a foreign element in the shape of miracle-plays and mysteries.

In the accompanying diagram I have attempted to place in parallel lines the development of the drama among the European divisions of the Indo-Germanic race. It will be seen then that while the Greek and Roman drama have developed regularly and independently from pagan religious observances, in the case of the Teutonic and Scandinavian branches the development has been deflected by the introduction of Christianity.

In India the development has been normal throughout. Monier Williams, in his Indian Wisdom, thus describes the origin of the Hindu drama:—

"In all likelihood the germ of the dramatic representations of the Hindus, as of the Greeks, is to be sought for in public exhibitions of dancing, which consisted at first of simple movements